“Now what ceremony is mentioned in verse 24? Well, it’s very clear. Remember these people had left the town, and Gideon had come to catch up with them and punish their leader. Gideon couldn’t leave Noah alone—he was on his heels all the time.
“So they were hostile parties who were opposed to each other. One was the refugees, and the other was the avenging party following them, so they were hostile. They couldn’t go back home together until they had settled, smoked the peace pipe, and had the ceremony. You have to have a ceremony before you can reach peace with a hostile group. You either fight them or have the ceremony, so that’s what they did. They had a peace ceremony” (Nibley, Teachings of the Book of Mormon, 2:125).